Greenville Ave News

Japanese meat palace on Dallas' Greenville Ave spins off new outdoor bar

Will there be meat? Oh yes there will.

Manpuku

There's a new outdoor bar open on Greenville Avenue. Called The Niku Bar, it's a spinoff of Manpuku, the interactive Japanese yakiniku grill, and according to a release is set to open on October 7.

The release describes it as a cozy outdoor space surrounded by greenery-flanked walls, with seating for 59 and a private room with sofa seating.

This new designated outdoor dining area will serve a unique blend of Japanese and Spanish tapas-style sharable bites.

It'll have its own menu, created by chef Kentaro Tsunoda, who earned a Michelin Star as executive sous chef at Stella Maris in Paris before joining Manpuku.

That menu will include:

Uni & Kobe Beef Sashimi
Beef Yakiniku Tortilla Pizza
Crab Ceviche
Japanese Taco Rice
Crispy Cheese
Spicy Beef Ramen

"Dallas diners are already falling in love with Chef Tsunoda’s creative dishes, and our new Niku Bar further displays his skill with unique flavor combinations,” says Shinya li, CEO of Take Five Dining Texas Company, which owns Manpuku. "With The Niku Bar, Manpuku continues to evolve its unique experience that can’t be found anywhere else in Dallas."

Take Five Dining Texas Company is based in Los Angeles and Tokyo, and operates seven yakiniku restaurants and eight western cuisine restaurants in central Tokyo. That includes Manpuku Japanese Yakiniku Grill, a chain of Japanese barbecue (yakiniku) restaurants founded in Tokyo 70 years ago, with four locations in Southern California.

Manpuku opened in Dallas in June. It's an interactive experience featuring raw beef and vegetables cooked on tabletop grills and eaten fresh and hot. Heavy on the beef, and that goes for The Niku Bar, too.

"In Japanese, niku means 'meat,' so we’ll have a strong focus on new ways to experience American wagyu beef with interesting flavors like sea urchin or raw egg yolk,” Tsunoda says. "We’ll offer a completely different experience on our patio than we do inside with a large and varied menu with something new to try on each visit."

In addition to the sharable bites menu, the beverage menu features a signature sangria with red wine, fresh, seasonal fruit and local honey. Also available are sommelier selected wines, Japanese whiskies and craft beer.

greenville-avenue

Sourdough News

Trades Delicatessen in Oak Cliff Dallas books baker for bread & bagels

Trades

Trades Delicatessen

Dallas' Oak Cliff is home to one thing that everyone wants: a deli. Called Trades Delicatessen, it's from longtime neighborhood entrepreneurs Jason Roberts and Amy Cowan (Oddfellows, Revelers Hall) and is serving breakfast and lunch daily with a menu of sandwiches and baked goods — including in-house baked breads and bagels.

The restaurant is at 312 W. 7th St. — a space previously occupied by Chan Thai and Pho 88, a joint restaurant that moved to Davis Street.

Roberts and Cowan had a vision for a combination brewery (called Jaquval), bakery, and sandwich shop. They opened Jaquval in December 2023, and then Trades in February 2024.

"We had been brewing our beer for a while and roasting our coffee, so we decided to do our own bread as well," Roberts says. "We wanted to have bagels in the neighborhood and new style sandwiches where we baked our bread and smoked our meats."

The two spots are connected by an open door. Sandwiches from Trades are sold at Jaquval. Both spaces share the bakery, roaster, and brewery in back.

The deli menu includes hot and cold sandwiches, modeled after places like Russ & Daughters and Katz Deli. There's a pastrami sandwich, French dip, and an Italian cold cut. There's a meatball sandwich, a pulled pork torta, and a mushroom melt with Swiss and provolone cheese.

There are also breakfast sandwiches on bagel, seeded roll, or sourdough toast.

All of their sandwiches are served on bread made in house. To lead their bakery, they brought in Devin Reynolds, who previously worked under David Madrid, founder of Wheat & Sour bakery and former baker at the now-closed Meridian.

At Trades, Reynolds is overseeing a program with all kinds of bread: hoagie rolls, hotdog and burger buns, rye, whole grain, sourdough, and bolillos, as well as pastries served at the deli, Jaquval, and Oddfellows.

You can get a baguette for $4, a Danish for $4.50, a pistachio croissant for $5, or a 6-pack of burger buns for $5.75.

They are also doing bagels with choice of in-house smoked lox, traditional lox, or pastrami lox. During the week, they make and sell about 150 bagels daily, and that number doubles on weekends, with varieties such as plain, blueberry, poppyseed, and everything. For extra authenticity, they installed a water filtration system with the same PH balance as water in New York.

Their beverage program includes coffee and espresso drinks, house-made root beer, and a made-to-order limeade/lemonade.

The space resembles a classic European bakery, with brass signage and a big window with visibility to the back bakery. There’s seating space for about 15, but the opening to the Jaquval space allows for fluid traffic and additional tables next door.

During COVID, they started a European-inspired bodega in Oddfellows and that moved to the current Trades Delicatessen space, where customers can find wine, nuts, candy, sardines, and olive oil. The deli also has sliced meats to-go, Luscher’s sausages —which is also used for the kolaches — house-made jams, coffee, wine, and sodas.

desserts openings